"What happens in Vegas"... Will likely end up on this site. Sorry, Las Vegas Chamber.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

They're Not "Props", Joe Heck. They're Reality.

In the past week, we've been wondering where Joe Heck would fall in the gun safety debate in Congress. He released some "moderate" sounding yet very empty language just before several of his constituents tried to meet with him last week. But now, it looks like we finally have an answer.

.@RepJoeHeck on KDWN: "Anti-gun" forces trying to use "the cloud of emotion surrounding Newtown...to limit Second Amendment rights."

Radio talker Alan Stock: "Nauseating....shameful act" to put up Gabby Giffords as a "prop" in the gun debate. @RepJoeHeck: "I agree."

Really? Did Joe Heck really just go there? I wonder if he's willing to call Gabby Giffords a mere "prop" to her face. I wonder if he's also willing to do that to the families of those who died in Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Chicago, and/or Southern California.

18-year-old Janay Mcfarlane, a mother of a 3-month-old boy, was shot in the head and killed in a Chicago suburb just hours after her sister sat behind President Obama as he advocated for tighter gun regulations on Friday.

January was one of the deadliest in Chicago in more than a decade, with more than 40 people killed in homicides. “Last year, there were 443 murders with a firearm in this city,and 65 of them were 18 and under,” Obama said in his speech. “That’s the equivalent of a Newtown every four months. That’s precisely why the overwhelming majority of Americans are asking for some common sense proposals to make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun.” Obama also remembered Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old who was killed in a South Side park days after performing at his inauguration.

As we discussed on Sunday, Chicago has suffered immensely from gun violence despite its strict local regulations. That's because Illinois state law is more lax, and because it's incredibly easy for Chicago street gangs and other criminals to obtain firearms from "gun easy" states like Indiana and Mississippi.

Either Joe Heck doesn't understand this... Or he does, yet he still refuses to act on gun safety reform. Either way, it's reprehensible. And Joe Heck needs to open his eyes and notice the reality checks all around him on the vicious reality of gun violence.

It's not as if Nevada is immune from this epic gun violence. Something must change. And Joe Heck needs to see the reality check(s) right in front of him.

Heck and many of his bombastic, bellicose, condescending conservative colleagues in Congress are simply applying their gun-owner mentality to their rhetoric, hence their tendency to shoot their mouths off first ... and ask themselves if they know what the hell they're talking about later.